The Art of Deception

by The Art of Deception (retail) (epub)

  I put down the file. I was no longer interested in its contents. ‘Scrub that last bit,’ Julian was saying. ‘I know you’re not really like that. If people who believe in God and the eternal retribution of the afterlife can’t manage to behave well, how can anyone do so for the mere love of truth and learning? But still, why does it matter?’

  I stood behind her, putting my hands on her shoulders, slipping them under the neck of her sweater, feeling her skin beneath my finger tips.

  ‘I don’t think you should discount love of truth,’ I said. Her upstretched arms reached behind my head, pulling it down to her. ‘But it gets mixed up with other things: discovery and possession. The abstract truth you see becomes the particular truth that you yourself have found, that you have toiled over and made your own. When it is suggested that it is not a higher truth, probably not a truth at all, it is an attack on you, your labours and your possession.’ Her face beneath me was upside down, giving her a new and unfamiliar appearance.

  ‘But so much energy to protect an idea. The venom, the fury…’

  ‘Who was it who said that academic disputes were so intense precisely because the stakes are so small? But they’re not small at all. They’re vast. The loss of a life’s work, a belief, a beloved object. It’s like discovering your wife is a whore, your lover unfaithful, your mother not your mother. It’s like losing your most treasured object in a vile burglary.’

  ‘Oh, come on. She’s still got the painting. If it’d been stolen, then she really would have lost it. It’s still as beautiful as it ever was. What’s she got to complain about?’

  ‘As might have been expected, you take the modern view, that is, every object is unique, nothing is fake, the question of authenticity is projected on it by us. It’s only in our minds that it is the real thing or not. But all this takes no account of the passion and attachment we have for our ideas, chiefly because they’re our own and not because they correspond with the truth. Minna will feel bereft, not of the painting, as you say, she’s still got it, but of her idea, which was her way of possessing it.’

  I could identify with Minna. I could not be possessive of Julian. She would not permit it and I had no status to demand any kind of loyalty. So my desire to have what I had no right to manifested itself in trying to discover her history. It was an attempt to comprehend her, hold her. If I knew about her then I might understand her. If I understood her, then I would have captured her, at least in my mind, which was a type of possession I liked. It was my truth and though, like Minna, I was commissioning research, I did not really want to find anything that contradicted my own conviction.

  ‘That’s the way we possess anything really, or anybody. We have an idea of them and when we’re forced to change it, by their actions or our own, it’s hard to accept we were wrong.’

  12

  Prisca always called me at my office when she had family business to discuss.

  “Your father is going to be in London at the end of the week. He wants to meet your new companion. Indeed, so do I.’

  I had made no attempt to hide Julian from my friends and family; I simply had not introduced her to any of them.

  “Why did he speak to you, rather than phoning me directly?’ I asked, evasively.

  ‘Nicholas, you know your father is incapable of talking to you about anything of significance, even to fix a date for dinner. Of course he rang me first. Anyway it’s time for you to come clean. I’ve had Emily on my back as well.’

  ‘Emily? How did she…?’

  ‘Well, since even I have had reports of you with a stunning brunette at the Festival Hall, the Wigmore Hall, Covent Garden, the River Cafe and Harvey Nichols, all of which sound fairly unlikely places for you, I can’t imagine that the friends who noticed you are likely to hold back on reporting their sightings to Emily. Is this a ploy to make her jealous?’

  ‘It isn’t a ploy of any kind. And there’s no question of coming clean; I’m not hiding anything.’

  ‘Good. Then let’s say Friday evening.’

  ‘I’m not sure…’

  ‘Friday evening, the two of you. I’ll be in touch about where we’ll eat.’

  I would have to turn up and face an inquisition by Prisca and my father, but I was not sure whether I wanted Julian there. However, I was bound to pass on the invitation and she replied, without hesitation, ‘Of course I’ll come with you.’

  Prisca phoned to say we would eat at her house in Islington.

  ‘Are you certain, Prisca?’ This sounded really bad news. She had not cooked in years, to my sure knowledge, living on the House of Lords’ restaurants and invitations to dinner.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fed. I’ve recently mastered the microwave. It occurred to me that if Emily heard of us all dining at Frederick’s, she might be upset I’ll tell her anyway, but at least this way she won’t get any extra reports on the evening.’

  ‘No one to contradict your slant, you mean.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll speak to your father, so it won’t be a one-sided impression.’

  There was no possibility of co-ordinating a front with Julian, who knew the bare bones of my family structure, but not the sinews and tissues that bound them together. I never normally spoke about my feelings: only Prisca managed to prise out of me my wishes for the future. I hardly knew any longer what I wanted. I wanted Julian, and so Emily, the children and the life I had been driven out of had to remain on hold until I was ready for them again.

  We arrived separately, converging by chance on Prisca’s front door in Gibson Square at the same time. Julian was walking. I kissed her cheek and said, ‘Couldn’t you find a cab? Did you get lost?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. I just decided to take the tube. Is this it? Let’s go in. I’m cold.’ She hustled me up the steps and rang the bell. I was puzzled by the unusual idea of her taking the tube, and from Sloane Square to the Angel, one of the most tedious journeys on the underground.

  Prisca led the way upstairs to her chaotic drawing room dominated by books. That night she had tactfully put out my father’s most recent volumes, huge coffee table tomes weighing in at several kilos, adorned with ravishing photographs.

  My father was already seated by the fire with his particular brand of whisky in his glass. I saw, with relief, that the evening was to be eased by the presence of my lawyer cousin Jamie, who divided his time between Brussels and London, and his sculptress wife, Sybil, who had never got on with Emily and so might be counted on to be sympathetic, at least initially. They rose to greet us. My father shook Julian’s hand warmly, and still holding on to it, placed her in his favoured chair, drawing up another beside her. He was soon engaged in deep conversation, or rather deep monologue, his preferred form of social interaction. The full force of his charm was directed at her.

  My relationship with my father has always been difficult. His weakness is his lack of concentration, illustrated best by his number of marriages, four at the last count. In recent years, since his retirement, we have got along better, because we rarely see one another. My latest, and longest-enduring, stepmother keeps him busy in Scotland. He continues to expand the family art collection, and he has taken up history. This is such a wide-ranging subject that when his interest in one area flags, he can always take up another. It has also been the excuse for travel for ‘research’ when life in Scotland gets too cold or too boring. This hobby has not been unproductive, because he has an excellent picture researcher and has published a number of glossy books with a minimum of text on various Scottish subjects. His most recent enthusiasm is the history of his branch of the Ochterlonies, which he claims is of general interest, because it illustrates the banditry of early capitalism.

  Prisca fussed around finding us drinks.

  ‘The first Angus Ochterlonie was a genius in his way, don’t you agree with me, Jamie?’ My father was lecturing Julian and did not wait for confirmation. ‘After getting himself half-educated as a doctor, he set himself up as a pharmacist. He started with
a small loan and ended up a millionaire. I believe in the early years he and his family lived more or less on porridge, because he couldn’t bear to spend borrowed money on his living expenses. Things were much less controlled in those days. It seems fantastic that someone could mix up a concoction of his own and sell it to people, but that’s what he did. He invented all kinds of pills and potions for application inside and out. There was one rather bad moment, early on, when he was using arsenic, for face whitening I think, and was employing it in excessive quantities. There were a few deaths, but he got through that little difficulty, because, after all, il faut souffrir pour etre belle. Wouldn’t you agree, my dear?’

  I found I was suffering from the embarrassment children feel in the presence of a parent. I could not bear to listen and went down to the kitchen to watch Prisca putting containers in and out of the microwave.

  ‘Minna Horndeane is a vengeful type, isn’t she?’ she remarked, pouring the soup from its cardboard box into a plastic pot and snapping the lid on it.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard about poor Patrick Jameson?’

  ‘Don’t tell me they didn’t give him the job?’

  ‘They didn’t. And apparently it was Minna who absolutely refused to have him.’

  ‘I saw him only the day before yesterday and he didn’t say anything.’

  ‘He would probably find it hard to tell you, especially as he would have to say that it was because you were one of his referees that he lost it.’

  She took the pot out of the microwave and opened the lid, removing her fingers quickly from the blast of steam. ‘Oh, oh. Wonderful things, these machines, once you’ve got the hang of them.’ She stirred the soup, replaced it and shut the door.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ I said. ‘He was made for that job. They can’t have been so stupid to let themselves be overridden by Minna.’

  However, I did not doubt that Minna would harm the career of a third person, unconnected with our quarrel, because he was identified with me. The alarm rang again on the microwave. Prisca was more cautious this time in checking the contents.

  ‘I crossed swords with Dr Horndeane a year or so ago when she gave evidence to a Lords committee. She has a very possessive view of the truth.’

  ‘Minna’s got a rebel in her camp, which I suppose is not surprising. She doesn’t get on well with her colleagues.’ I told her about the email messages. I had received three of them by now.

  ‘What’s the point?’ Prisca, like Julian, asked. ‘It’s not as if it’s a matter of life or death.’

  ‘Prestige is one reason. No director wants to see the quality of his collection downgraded. But it’s more than that with Minna and the Vermeer. She wrote her first monograph on the picture, so she has some sort of sentimental attachment to it. I think she’s in love with it. There must be a name for a passion for a representation of reality, but I can’t remember what it is.’

  ‘Would she go as far as faking documentation?’

  ‘I’ve got hold of some of the tests. Don’t ask me how. There’s nothing incriminating either of the painting or of Minna on the file.’

  ‘She wouldn’t leave it there. Perhaps your e-mailer knows something. Who do you think it is?’

  ‘It must be Anthony Watendlath, her deputy. He doesn’t want to put the knife in himself. It wouldn’t endear him to the Board, if he hopes to succeed Minna, to have been seen ruining the previous director and undermining the value of the collection. He needs someone to do it for him, and dish Minna in the process.’

  ‘So you’re a cat’s paw for Anthony Watendlath?’

  ‘No. As far as I am concerned, Minna has nothing to do with this. It’s a question of…’ I hesitated. Why did I persist in this search? ‘Oh, it’s simply the quest for knowledge. What Julian calls love of abstract truth.’

  ‘Call the family, will you? Such a funny name, Julian. So Roman. She looks rather Roman in temperament, too, as if she would fall on her sword to save what she saw as her honour. Fine, of course, if her loyalty is to you.’

  She poured the soup into bowls, adding, ‘Or perhaps she would make you fall on her sword.’

  The curious evening passed without the direct challenge I had feared. My father was enchanted with Julian; Sybil invited her to her studio; Jamie was impressed. Only Prisca did not like her, though she limited her disapproval to her remarks about Romans. I was perplexed and disappointed. I could see no reason why the two women should not be friends.

  At midnight we dropped my father at his club. After saying goodbye to him and seeing him inside, Julian put her hand on the driver’s door.

  ‘Do you mind if I take over?’ she asked.

  Although I was surprised, for I had not been driving particularly badly, I didn’t mind. Emily used to complain constantly about my driving; Julian, in contrast, would sit beside me without comment on my choice of routes or slowness at junctions. We moved off in silence.

  ‘I’m sorry about this evening,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure why we had to go through it.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I enjoyed learning about the disreputable past of your respectable family. It made me think that the Mafia of today may just be the founders of eminent families like yours, Nicholas.’

  She was glancing in the mirror as she spoke. There were few cars about at that time of night. We approached the traffic lights at the top of St James’s as they were turning orange. Suddenly, instead of braking, she accelerated, passing through the lights on red, as if banging a door behind her. I said nothing. I did not want to be a nagging passenger like Emily or to suggest that I was worried about my car which, though it cost a fortune, was not particularly precious to me. I simply did not like being driven at such a furious pace.

  Her profile with its faintly curving nose and rather abrupt, rounded chin was dark, rimmed with light from the street lamps of Piccadilly. I watched her eyes flicker from the road ahead to the rear-view mirror. She was heading, fast, for the underpass, when suddenly, at the last possible moment, she swerved in front of a taxi and drove up the slip road to Hyde Park Corner. She did slow down a little as she approached the roundabout, but did not stop, inserting herself as skilfully as a stunt driver into the traffic. I could not prevent myself from saying, protestingly, ‘Julian.’

  She took no notice. The lights at the top of Grosvenor Place turned red in front of us. As we drove at greater and greater speed, my brain slowed events down. On our left a taxi and lorry, which had been waiting for their turn, began slowly to move forward. They inched onwards as she accelerated through the red lights, manoeuvring the car ahead of the vehicles moving towards our predestined impact. I could see the taxi driver’s face: his eyes bulged and his mouth was open. He was not cursing; he was simply waiting in horror for the expected impact, a moment away. Julian drove in snake-like fashion across the traffic stream, veering right then left, as if she were avoiding fire. The cab’s black bonnet and radiator grill disappeared from view without hitting my door. She swung the car to the left again, into Grosvenor Crescent, and slowed down, leaving Hyde Park Corner echoing to the strident relief of blasting horns.

  ‘Are you trying to kill me?’ I asked. She was looking in the mirror again. In the emptiness of Belgrave Square her speed no longer seemed dangerous.

  She laughed. ‘Oh, darling one, were you frightened? Of course not. I’m not trying to kill you.’

  As usual, she refused any further discussion of what had happened. She lay in bed asleep beside me, and I put my hand protectively on her flank. I now had a retrospective justification for my employment of Mr Colin Trevor. It was not simply a question of satisfying my gnawing desire to know; she was in danger. The mugging and the break-in were part of a campaign to terrorise her. She needed protection.

  There was a pendative to that evening. Prisca rang me two or three days later. She was too subtle to ask direct questions. She was just there on the end of the line and I found that I was telling her things I did not mean
to say. Prisca was like that; it was a power that she used deliberately to gain influence over people.

  ‘She’s very beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not so much that she’s beautiful. If s the fascination she exerts. And she is so much fun to be with. She makes me laugh. She is so extraordinarily self-contained. I never know what she is thinking or what she is feeling.’

  ‘You never know what anyone is feeling,’ Prisca commented. ‘I’ve never known anyone less conscious of emotion, his own or anyone else’s, than you.’

  ‘This time I’m trying to understand.’

  ‘Hm. Your father was so funny about her.’

  I did not reply. It was one thing to hear Prisca’s opinion, my father’s quite another.

  ‘He said to me on the phone when he rang to thank me for a delicious dinner, (What does she give him to eat, poor lamb, if he thinks that was delicious?) he said, “Nicholas was utterly morose. What do you think they talk about?” And then he said, “I don’t suppose they do much talking.”’ She giggled.

  ‘Julian and I have a great deal in common,’ I said humourlessly. ‘We go to the theatre and concerts and the opera all the time. I never did that with Emily.’

  ‘That’s nothing. You and Em had a whole life in common. You’re just going out with Julian and having sex. And you do one because of the other.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this conversation, Prisca,’ I said and put the receiver down.

  13

  The question of how Christmas was to be spent that year took up an inordinate amount of negotiating time during November and the early part of December. I finally allowed Emily to take the children to the Dorset house and spend both Christmas and the New Year there. I hoped that some time in the future I could use this concession to win something I really wanted. Julian and I flew to the Yemen and spent a week in a country without Christmas and a winter without snow.